History

Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church of Youngstown, Ohio was founded in 1919, making it one of the oldest Greek Orthodox parishes in the Mahoning Valley. Its founding came in the context of one of the most turbulent periods in modern Greek history. In the years following the First World War, Greek immigrant communities across America were divided between supporters of the royalist faction backing the King of Greece and the Venizelist faction supporting liberal politician Eleftherios Venizelos. This political division gave rise in Youngstown to two separate Greek Orthodox communities: Saint John the Forerunner, organized in December 1915, and Saint Nicholas, founded by those of a different political persuasion and located on Walnut Street. For decades the two churches served the Greek community of Youngstown in parallel, reflecting the passions of the old country that the immigrants had carried with them to the Mahoning Valley.

When the parish was founded, the Saint Nicholas community took over an old Welsh church, transforming it into their Orthodox house of worship. The early immigrants who built the parish came with solid respect for God and a deep desire to have a church of their own, establishing an institution that has served the spiritual needs of the faithful in the Youngstown area across more than a century of parish life.

Saint Nicholas served as the mother church for the broader Greek Orthodox presence in the Mahoning Valley, and when Archangel Michael Greek Orthodox Church was established in Campbell in 1955, one third of Saint Nicholas's membership, comprising 135 families who lived in Campbell but had been traveling to Youngstown for worship, transferred their membership to the new parish, a milestone that reflected the growth of the Greek Orthodox community across the entire valley.

Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the greater Youngstown area as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a community whose history is as rich as the history of Youngstown itself.